Tag Archives: Aneeqa Maria

LAHORE, Pakistan, July 14 (Compass Direct News) – Well-known Pakistani minority rights activist Joseph Francis and two others were jailed on Sunday (July 12) for forged documents in connection with false charges of assaulting a woman who visited his office in 2006, their lawyers said.

Francis, national director of the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), which for more than two decades has defended Christians and others against spurious charges by Islamists, was arrested on Thursday (July 9) along with CLAAS official Ashar Sarfaraz and Sarfaraz’s brother-in-law, Zulfiqar Wilson.

Judge Malik Muhammad Mushataq remanded all three to two days of police custody under pressure from Islamists who have harassed Francis and the other two men with false accusations, CLAAS lawyers said, and on Sunday a magistrate sent them to jail to await trial.

“This is the first time in my 19 years of work that I have been so set up by the judicial system,” said one of Francis’ lawyers, Akbar Munawar Durrani. “The judge was blind to the facts presented before him.”

The lawyer told Compass that the court did not listen to their arguments for releasing Francis as it was biased toward the Islamists who have urged the woman to charge the CLAAS officials with assault. In December 2006 CLAAS officers had counseled the woman, identified only as Roma, when her Christian family brought her to the CLAAS office after she converted to Islam.

“She was brought to us because she had converted to Islam, and her parents wanted us to explain to her the consequences and implication of doing so,” said CLAAS Program Officer Katherine Sapna.

The woman had changed her name to Aisha and had married Mehboob Basharat, a Muslim who had converted to Christianity and then “reverted” back to Islam. CLAAS lawyers said that Basharat, whom police describe as “fraudulent,” along with an Islamist group and a church-going lawyer at odds with the local Christian community, are behind the assault charges officially filed by Roma/Aisha.

Francis and the two others are in Camp Jail in Lahore; today a judge denied their plea for release on bail. CLAAS lawyers said they expect to file for bail in Sessions Court this week.

Francis is charged with forging documents in the 2007 case in which he and the two others are accused of beating Roma/Aisha, “misbehaving” with her and setting her on fire, lawyers said. The forgery charges arose, said Sapna, after two former CLAAS staff members submitted a fake medical certificate indicating that Francis was too ill to appear at court on July 14, 2007 for a hearing on the assault charges.

Francis was out of the country at the time of the hearing and was not aware that the two CLAAS staff members, Justin Gill and Aneeqa Maria, had submitted the false medical certificate, Sapna said. Both Gill and Maria have since left CLAAS.

Assault Charges

Sapna told Compass that the Christian parents of the woman then known as Roma brought her to CLAAS offices on Dec. 23, 2006. Roma’s mother, Shamim Bibi, and sisters Shabana and Taskeen, were with her at the CLAAS office, where all three spent the night at CLAAS’s second-floor shelter for abuse victims, Sapna said.

Roma/Aisha’s husband called police the next day, and officers ordered her family to bring her to the Race Course Police Station, Sapna said. Christmas was near and most of the CLAAS staff members were gone for the holiday, so Francis himself went to the police station. When police questioned Roma/Aisha, she never mentioned being mistreated while in the CLAAS offices, Sapna said.

CLAAS staff members forgot the matter until Basharat and church-going attorney Raja Nathaniel Gill held a press conference on Feb. 18, 2007 in which they had Roma/Aisha claim that she had been attacked at the CLAAS office. In May 2007 Basharat, Gill and the Islamist group had her file a First Information Report (FIR) at Ichhra police station charging that during her stay at CLAAS, staff members beat her, forced her to revert to Christianity, doused her with kerosene oil and set her ablaze inside a locked room.

Sapna said Roma/Aisha’s FIR also claimed Church of Pakistan Bishop Samuel Azariah threatened her by phone while she was at the CLAAS office. Gill had Roma implicate the bishop because CLAAS had been instrumental in clearing Bishop Azariah of charges of murdering his wife in April 2006, according to Sapna. She said that Gill bore a grudge against CLAAS because he had hoped to gain some advantage in the false charge against the bishop.

In response to an inquiry from Capital City (Lahore) Police, Ichhra police reported on March 7, 2007 that Basharat was a “fraudulent man” who repeatedly changed his religion in order to malign both Christianity and Islam, and that he repeatedly cheated on women. The Ichhra police quoted Basharat’s first wife, Fouzia, as saying he “had already cheated on four girls like this.”

Sapna said that Basharat originally converted from Islam to Christianity in 2001.

“He converted along with his wife Fouzia and two daughters,” she said. “He did a seminary course, and after that he became part of the clergy and joined 15 Waris Road Central Church, run by Bishop Samuel Azariah. Roma used to go to this church for theological studies and was Basharat’s student. There Basharat trapped her, and on Nov. 26, 2006 they got married [under Muslim rites].”

Compass obtained Fouzia Basharat’s court statement of March 8, 2007, which she gave after her husband had married Roma. In the statement, Fouzia said that on Sept. 12, 2006, her husband brought his pupil Roma to her and told her that she was his new wife – that he had married her in a Christian rite. She also said in her statement that Basharat later married Roma/Aisha under Muslim rites, and that Roma had changed her name to Aisha.

Fouzia Basharat then filed a case under Christian Marriage Act Section 22 applying for judicial separation. Sapna said that Fouzia Basharat initially resisted marriage to Basharat and warded off a later effort to reconvert her to Islam.

“During that time, she stayed at the Central Church, and her children continued their education at St. Peter’s High School,” Sapna said. She added that the Christian rite marriage of Roma/Aisha to Basharat was illegal, and that CLAAS had sought only to help resolve associated problems.

Sapna said CLAAS staff members were concerned about Francis remaining incarcerated, as he suffers from diabetes and hypertension.

Civil and District Judge Malik Mushtaq of Magistrate Section 30 will hear the forgery case.

ISTANBUL, August 20 (Compass Direct News) – A custody battle in Pakistan over two Christian girls kidnapped and allegedly forced to convert to Islam remained inconclusive after a hearing today, with rights advocates for the family suspecting Muslim fundamentalists of pressuring the minors and a medical board.

Judge Malek Saeed Ejaz of the Lahore High Court’s Multan Branch set the next hearing for Sept. 9 after a two-hour proceeding. Lawyers for the Masih family said that if the girls are not returned to their parents at the next hearing they will appeal to the Pakistani Supreme Court.

Until then, Aneela and Saba Masih, 10 and 13 respectively, will remain at Multan’s Dar Ul Rahman women’s shelter, where they have stayed since a July 29 hearing.

Islamic jurisprudence and Pakistani law do not recognize the forced marriages of minors. The judge’s decision to extend the case was based on Saba Masih’s testimony that she is 17 and on a Lahore medical board’s ruling that she is between 15 and 17.

The medical board, however, may have been pressured to declare Saba Masih an adult, lawyers said.

“This is a case of conversion from Christianity to Islam, so we can say there is pressure, especially from fundamentalist groups,” said Aneeqa Maria, legal advocate for the Lahore-based Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS)

Rights advocates said the girls themselves may have come under pressure while at the women’s shelter, although they were sent there with the purpose of escaping coercion by the Muslim family that captured them.

The Muslim family continues to threaten the girls at the shelter, said Rashid Rehman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

“They are giving them misinformation regarding their parents, saying, ‘If you return to your parents, they will kill you,’” he said.

The court has not accepted Saba Masih’s baptismal records or birth certificates as evidence of her minor status in previous hearings.

Pakistani law requires females to be at least 16 to marry without permission of legal guardians. A minor cannot marry regardless of his or her religion.

Both sides agree Aneela Masih is a minor and that therefore custody of her cannot be granted to the captor’s family. The lawyers for the defense argue, however, that custody of her should be given to her older sister and not to her Christian parents.

A strict interpretation of Islamic law does not allow non-Muslim parents to have custody of a Muslim child.

The prosecution says there is no proof the girls converted freely to Islam, and that they should be given back to their Christian parents. In fact, the Muslim family’s claim to custody of the girls doesn’t even meet the legal muster of Islamic jurisprudence, Rehman argued.

“There is no example in Islamic history of minor girls who converted to Islam without permission or the presence of their legal guardian,” he said. In Islamic law, “women do not have full capacity to give testimony in court. How is it possible to accept the statement they have embraced Islam?”

Possible Outcomes

Maria of CLAAS speculated that the court would give custody of Aneela Masih to her parents at the Sept. 9 hearing. Since both sides agree she is a minor, the prosecution will argue she doesn’t understand what has been happening and could not have freely chosen to convert.

Rehman said pursuing custody of the older sister would be more difficult.

“It will not be fruitful for us, because Saba herself has claimed she is married,” he said. “She has attained the age of puberty and is claiming to have married by her own choice. She has also claimed she is 17 years old. She will likely be given custody to her Muslim husband.”

If both girls aren’t returned to their Christian parents, then the prosecution plans to appeal to the Pakistan Supreme Court.

An Aug. 6 hearing at the Lahore High Court’s Multan branch ruled that the district medical board of Multan should examine Saba Masih to determine if she was old enough to marry of her own volition. In previous hearings she claimed she was 17.

A crowd of about 20 people gathered at the courthouse today and shouted threats at the Masih family and their lawyers. Among those in the crowd were Islamic scholars from Mufti groups, which have also made threatening telephone calls to CLAAS for trying to give Christian parents custody of Muslim children, Maria said.

The two sisters were kidnapped on June 26 while traveling to visit their uncle in Sarwar Shaheed, northwest of Multan. Their parents say local fruit vendor Muhammad Arif Bajwa kidnapped them in Chawk Munda, a small town in south Punjab.

Saba Masih was married to Amjad Ali, a Muslim, the next day. Bajwa and Ali registered a case with the police on June 28 for custody of the girls based on their alleged conversion to Islam.

Younis Masih, the girls’ father, claimed Ali and his family kidnapped the girls while they were en route to visit their uncle. He only learned of their location after the men filed for custody and summoned Masih to the police station.

In a July 29 hearing, Judge Saghir Ahmed said he did not believe the girls converted to Islam of their own volition and ordered them to be sent to a government women’s shelter so that they could think freely until the Aug. 6 hearing.

The girls’ father has tried to gain custody of his daughters by appealing to Islamic authorities. On July 10 he obtained an edict from Chawk Munda imam Mohammad Abdul Majeed on whether his 13-year-old daughter’s marriage was valid according to Islam.

Majeed replied that a 13-year-old girl’s marriage is valid if she has attained puberty and freely chosen to convert. If Saba Masih’s conversion were coerced, then her marriage would be invalid because Islam does not allow compulsion in religion, he said.

Majeed’s ruling, however, was not accepted in previous hearings since he declined to appear in court and testify.

Kidnapping and Threats

Today’s hearing in Multan came during increased kidnappings of Christian minors and threats against legal activists in Pakistan, a majority-Muslim country of 168 million.

Phone threats from Islamic groups have forced Maria, lawyer for a Christian legal advocacy group and counsel for the Masih family, to go underground for the last two weeks.

CLAAS has come under scrutiny for taking up cases of the forced conversion of kidnapped girls such as the Masih sisters and that of Sonia Younis, 13. On June 24 a Muslim woman in Lahore kidnapped Younis and married her to her son, Mohammead Imran.

When Younis’ parents filed a complaint with a local police station, an investigator returned three days later with a certificate stating Younis had become a Muslim and married Imran. Younis’ parents charged Imran’s parents with kidnapping, but police dismissed it on religious grounds, according to CLAAS.

Kidnappings of non-Muslims are common in Pakistan, where the Christian population is less than 2 percent.

“Generally, because the courts are biased, they give custody to the Muslims,” Maria of CLAAS said. “In many cases the girls are minors. These kinds of cases are similar to others.”

Family of young man accuses Muslim girlfriend’s relatives of torture, ‘honor killing.’

ISTANBUL, August 7 (Compass Direct News) – Local Pakistani police declared the death of a young Christian man in May to be a suicide requiring no investigation, but a high inspector has reopened the case and taken two Muslim suspects into custody.

Adeel Masih, 19, was found dead on May 4 in Hafizabad, Pakistan. His family and human rights lawyers believe the relatives of a 19-year-old Muslim woman, Kiran Irfan, with whom Masih had a one-year relationship, tortured and killed him. His family has dubbed his death an “honor killing.”

Marriage between Christian men and Muslim women is forbidden according to a strict interpretation of sharia (Islamic Law), and even social contacts such as these can incite violent reactions in Pakistan, a majority-Muslim nation of 170 million.

Local police in Gujranwala, in Punjab province, did not charge Irfan’s family with any crimes and effectively declared them innocent when Masih’s family first came to the station in May, according to the Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), a Lahore-based Christian legal advocacy group.

CLAAS then presented the case to the office of inspector general of Punjab province, who reopened it on July 18. Afterwards the young woman’s father and one uncle, Muhammad Riasat, were taken into custody. The district police office is currently leading the investigation.

Members of the Masih family said that when they first tried to register the case with local police three months ago, officers did not cooperate in launching an investigation because the suspects were Muslim and the victim was a Christian, according to CLAAS.

“The police said, ‘We will first inquire whether Adeel has committed suicide,’ because the culprits told the police about the fact that their daughter wanted to embrace Christianity because of Adeel,” said Aneeqa Maria, a case worker for CLAAS. “[In] this way the police were biased and lingered on the matter, because if there is a long delay in the lodging of a first incidence report, the case becomes weak.”

On July 4 the Masih family brought the case to CLAAS, which applied to the district police in Gujranwala. The case moved up the police chain of command and went all the way to the office of the inspector general of Punjab. It was reopened two weeks later.

Masih’s friendship with Irfan began about one year ago. His mother learned of their contact six months later and warned his son to end it due to the dangers. She then told Irfan’s family about their relationship, which both families considered culturally inappropriate.

Irfan’s family began to harass Masih’s parents and threatened to kill him if they ever again heard that their son was contacting their daughter. They said they “would not allow a Christian man to disgrace Islam this way,” according to CLAAS.

Masih disappeared on May 1 while en route by motorbike to visit Irfan. Her father, Mohammed Irfan, and her two uncles, Muhammad Amjad and Muhammad Riasat, reportedly followed him. They then abducted him and threw his motorbike into a nearby canal, a local resident told CLAAS.

Two hours after Masih disappeared, Irfan’s family called his relatives, claiming he had committed suicide near a canal 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Gujranwala. The family searched for two days with the assistance of divers but failed to find him. Police found Masih’s body on May 4 in a canal in Hafizabad, 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Gujranwala.

According to Masih’s relatives, members of Irfan’s family held Masih in captivity and tortured him for two days.

An autopsy report obtained by Compass states Masih sustained scalp and brain injuries. There were marks on his hands and feet indicating he had been bound.

When Masih’s family originally tried to register the case, accusing the culprits of murder, kidnapping, obstructing justice and conspiracy, police took no action. After an autopsy was performed on Masih’s body, according to CLAAS, his family attempted once more to register the case, but police officials said they would first investigate if Masih had committed suicide.

According to CLAAS, the First Incidence Report of the crime was not registered with the police until May 20, nearly three weeks after Masih disappeared.

Attempts by Compass to reach English-speaking officers at the Gujranwala police station, where Masih’s family originally filed a complaint, were unsuccessful.

Irfan and Riasat are expected to be charged in a local criminal court for murder, kidnapping, obstructing justice and conspiracy. No date has been set for the trial.